Korea Investment Savings Bank Ensures Business Continuity

KISB decided to implement an integrated monitoring system that enables integrated management of all systems with real-time response.

A System for Efficiently Managing a Complex Infrastructure and Responding to a Failure in Real Time

As the number of customers increased and the business grew, so did the number of partners and external organizations that KISB must collaborate with. The bank had continuously expanded the infrastructure to meet the increased needs, but it became extremely complicated and difficult to maintain the large number of management points required by the expanded network and equipment.

Also, because of the nature of a financial institution, a system failure could directly affect the flow of funding and result in business loss. So maintaining system availability was a primary concern. The bank has a real-time monitoring system in place, but only on the critical part of the network. So it took a while to identify a root cause, dispatch personnel and solve the problem when a system failure occured.

KISB decided to implement an integrated monitoring system that enables integrated management of all systems with real-time response. After a thorough review of other solutions including Zenius and WatchAll, the bank choose Ipswitch’s WhatsUp Gold.

As WhatsUp Gold does not require the installation of a dedicated monitoring program for test results, the system load factor was the lowest among the solutions reviewed and it did not have any impact on performance. Also, it offers superior scalability as it uses standard protocols allowing all systems that support standard SNMP protocol be monitored. Another important choice factor was Ipswitch’s robust customer references and proven technology.

From Post-incident Response to Proactive Prevention with Zero Downtime and Real-time Monitoring

Through the dashboard of WhatsUp Gold, KISB can view the status of the entire infrastructure at a glance, including 29 servers, 164 pieces of network equipment in the head office and 11 branches, external organizations’ networks, communication lines and even the temperature and humidity of the computer room. The bank is also utilizing Flow Monitor which provides packet analysis.

Previously, it took at least 20 minutes to identify the cause and the location of the problem when a call was received. But now the bank can instantaneously view where the problem occurs and take a necessary action. If defined limits are exceeded, the system triggers an alert, minimizing a system failure in case an abnormal situation occurs. Also, the bank achieved a 24/7 availability as the operators can monitor the system status anywhere on their mobile devices using the Active Script Action feature.

“We can pinpoint an issue by just looking at the dashboard and respond to it in a timely fashion,” says Jay Jang, Assistant Manager, Computational Team at KISB. “In the past, we were busy responding to a failure that occurred, now we can ensure stable system operation by proactively responding to a problem.”

Improved Management Efficiency

Real-time monitoring reduced time and labor required for daily and monthly inspections on major systems. KISB was able to eliminate the inspection it used to perform twice a day, before and after working hours, which accounted for over half of the day. Also, KISB can redirect the staff on more value-added tasks such as system improvement since dispatching them to the site to check on the problem is no longer needed.

In addition, it is utilizing a stability performance monitoring matrix that it created using systematic data as baseline data for system expansion.

KISB has being using WhatsUp Gold since August 2015. As a technology company specializing in network integration, enterprise solutions and IoT development, Vinetech assisted KISB with this project. Vinetech is Ipswitch’s authorized sole distributor in Korea since 2007 and has an impressive track record in successful WhatsUp Gold implementations for more than 700 WhatsUp Gold customers in Korea. The company successfully completed this project by providing infrastructure consulting and technologies customized for KISB’s environment.

KISB is considering implementing the Application Performance Monitor feature and database monitoring in the future for further improving the stability of the system operation. “Now that we have successful monitoring of infrastructure performance in place, we are thinking about bolstering the application and database monitoring,” said Jang. “We also plan to upgrade to the newest version of WhatsUp Gold when it is released to improve stability and performance of the systems even further as well as expand the compatibility among heterogeneous equipment.”